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Forum Change - Proposal/Idea On Bug Reporting-
generalmoco
Member Posts: 1,634
I couldn't find any other section best fitting for this, so I am going to post it here. It is going to be a long post, so please bear with me...
So since the current way on reporting game bugs is kinda hard to do, an Idea poped into my head last night as I logged off from STO...
Currently the way in-game bugs are handle via forums, is just plain wrong, it is hard to tell which bugs are being worked on, or are under investigation, and those that are minor, yet constant during gameplay, seem to get buried in this section: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=69forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=69
The idea would be to make it easier for both Players to submit bugs reports via forums to the devs while allowing the developers to have a better grasp of the bugs being submitted, while also maintaining a "breathing" moment for those of us who say that developers do not listen to feedback or care about bugs. So with out more to say, here is my proposal..
Remove the current "Gameplay Bug Reports" forum from the "Support" category.
Add an entire new Category to the STO forums titled "Under Maintenance"
The "Under Maintenance" category will have 4 forums to go with it;
* - Edited to add the Low Priority Section described by mightybobcnc
*Comrademoco logs into the STO forums to report a bug.* I head over to the "Under Maintenance" category, select "Gameplay Bug Reports" and report the following;
In either scenario/case, I know my bug report is being looked at (is underinvestigation), or requires more information from me.
Once the bug is fixed, tacofangs can move the thread to the "Solved" section. Which will also consists or have all other issues that are fixed.
Thus, I know the bug report has been fixed and no need for me to keep posting the issue over and over again.
This category "Under Maintenance" can also be used a master index for bugs that are currently being investigated or are in meed of a fixed.
Now say, Iconians comes along and tries to report the same issue about Club 47. Before he reports it, he can either look under "Under Maintenance" or "Solved" to know that the issue is being looked at or is already fixed.
Thus, this will prevent multiple threads about a single issue, this will also allow the developers to look at a single place for bug reports, while giving a breathing moment for those that say devs are not working an issue...
Also to add, those issues that have several threads, they can be merged into a single thread, which has the official response from a dev and can go either on "More Information Required" or "Solved"
It seems like a complicated proposal to understand, but I believe that if in action, it will be a lot easier to understand, and bug reports will be more effectively addressed.
Hopefully this makes sense!!!
And Hopefully this idea is considered and doesn't get buried in the rest of the threads in this section :d
So since the current way on reporting game bugs is kinda hard to do, an Idea poped into my head last night as I logged off from STO...
Currently the way in-game bugs are handle via forums, is just plain wrong, it is hard to tell which bugs are being worked on, or are under investigation, and those that are minor, yet constant during gameplay, seem to get buried in this section: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=69forum.perfectworld.com/forumdisplay.php?f=69
The idea would be to make it easier for both Players to submit bugs reports via forums to the devs while allowing the developers to have a better grasp of the bugs being submitted, while also maintaining a "breathing" moment for those of us who say that developers do not listen to feedback or care about bugs. So with out more to say, here is my proposal..
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Remove the current "Gameplay Bug Reports" forum from the "Support" category.
Add an entire new Category to the STO forums titled "Under Maintenance"
The "Under Maintenance" category will have 4 forums to go with it;
- "Gameplay Bug Reports"
- "More Information Required"
- "Under Investigation"
- "Solved"
- "Low Priority"
- "Gameplay Bug Reports" - This section is where ALL Bugs reports are made. They can be from tiny things; like Clothing Clipping, to more complex mechanics such as, % amount of certain energy type being affected by X. etc. etc. NEW THREADS GO HERE, POSTING IS ALLOWED.
- "More Information Required" - This section is where reports that require more information will be moved to. i.e. "my ship doesn't work", such thread/report would be moved here, so the poster knows that the thread is being looked at, but more specific information is required. NO NEW THREADS. POSTING ONLY
- "Under Investigation" - This Section will be used for bug reports that devs are currently looking at, or currently working on, this section can be used for feedback while the bug report is open. Bug Reports that, as mentioned, under investigation are moved here. NO NEW THREADS. POSTING ONLY.
- "Solved" - This section will only be used for bug reports that have been solved and are in coming in future patches. Bug threads/Reports that have been resolved are moved here. NO NEW THREADS, NO POSTING
- "Low Priority" - This section is for such bug reports that currently might have a fix, or are under investigation, but are not high priority, and thus required time to be patched into the holodeck will be moved to. NO NEW THREAD, NO POSTING *
* - Edited to add the Low Priority Section described by mightybobcnc
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
So to give a little more detail on how this works, imagine I am..... me!! hehe*Comrademoco logs into the STO forums to report a bug.* I head over to the "Under Maintenance" category, select "Gameplay Bug Reports" and report the following;
Tacofangs then comes along this section, and sees my report, he then moves the thread to either "More Information Required" or "Under Investigation"."Club 47 Dance Floor does not turn on"
~ I give the details about the bug in the body of the thread ~
In either scenario/case, I know my bug report is being looked at (is underinvestigation), or requires more information from me.
Once the bug is fixed, tacofangs can move the thread to the "Solved" section. Which will also consists or have all other issues that are fixed.
Thus, I know the bug report has been fixed and no need for me to keep posting the issue over and over again.
This category "Under Maintenance" can also be used a master index for bugs that are currently being investigated or are in meed of a fixed.
Now say, Iconians comes along and tries to report the same issue about Club 47. Before he reports it, he can either look under "Under Maintenance" or "Solved" to know that the issue is being looked at or is already fixed.
Thus, this will prevent multiple threads about a single issue, this will also allow the developers to look at a single place for bug reports, while giving a breathing moment for those that say devs are not working an issue...
Also to add, those issues that have several threads, they can be merged into a single thread, which has the official response from a dev and can go either on "More Information Required" or "Solved"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It seems like a complicated proposal to understand, but I believe that if in action, it will be a lot easier to understand, and bug reports will be more effectively addressed.
Hopefully this makes sense!!!
And Hopefully this idea is considered and doesn't get buried in the rest of the threads in this section :d
Post edited by Unknown User on
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I am glad my proposal made sense, hopefully it is considered, would make things a lot easier...
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
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I have an ongoing fleet roster bug which I wont go on about again but would love to know if there is anything more I can do (Information required), to enable me to get any feedback as to a resolution to this problem.
EDIT: No I'm going to be shameless lol!
I've bumped this bug a fair few times in the relevant forums and have yet to hear anything back, and I thought I had fulfilled the necessary information criteria to facilitate a response, however a (more information required) edit to the OP would be handy for me to try and learn what more I need to give in terms of information.
"If this will be our end, then I will have them make SUCH an end as to be worthy of rememberance! Out of torpedos you say?! Find me the ferengi!".
And thus, this is why the proposal I mentioned would be great... Hopefully Smirk is able to work around with the idea (if possible) in order to have better bug reporting flow in the forums!!!
I mean really I would most prefer some sort of front-facing interface for their JIRA database. Connecting it directly to JIRA would be suicidal for hack and exploit reasons, but if they could publish a cold redacted version that omitted any bug classified as an exploit and probably other sensitive info like dev comments, and displayed only bugs from the holodeck branch I would go nuts (in a good way). We could directly see what is high on their priority list and what is low on their priority list, what is being worked on and when, what is Not A Bug, because that's built directly into their bug managing tools.
That is entirely pie in the sky though. The forum idea actually stands a chance of happening. :P
Joined January 2009
I see the issue with that now, well the simple fix to that could be to add a section below "Solved" titled "Low Priority" where all "Low Priority" bugs reports will be moved to... this way, we know that atleast the issue is known, but it's not priority, thus giving a breathing moment for what I mentioned in the OP...
I could add that to the OP, aswell.
Thank you for the feedback!!!
Yes, exactly. I'm not familiar with JIRA, but I have used other bug tracking systems such as Bugzilla. For those not familiar with software development practice, bug tracking systems typically keep track of information like
(1) who a bug is currently assigned to;
(2) the bug's priority level;
(3) the bug's status (e.g., open, resolved, could not reproduce, etc.);
(4) whether the bug is a duplicate of another bug.
Cryptic already uses such a system. It's what generates those ticket numbers when you submit an in-game bug report. Cryptic already tracks all this information internally. Reproducing it manually on the forums is needless work. I would prefer an automated solution.
As I understand it, the Cryptic employees who manage their bug database are entirely different from the PWE employees who manage the forums. So I agree that we are unlikely to see an integration of Cryptic's bug database with the forums, even though it would be a huge improvement over what we have now. Currently, there is no way to search previously submitted bug reports; the in-game search function does not work. That's why I report a bug both in-game so that Cryptic will see it and again on the forums so that other players can see it. Sometimes, I report a bug four times:
(1) once in-game on Tribble,
(2) once in the "Tribble - Bug Reports" forum,
(3) once in-game on Holodeck when the bug goes live, and
(4) once more in the "Gameplay Bug Reports" forum.
It would be nice if there were a Web interface that allowed us to view, search, and comment on in-game bug reports.
Although forum integration would be pretty sweet. Or rather I suppose I mean account integration, since we already have accounts tied to the in-game bug reporter (unless the bug reporter only has 1 account used by every game client and instead includes account data as one of the fillable fields). Tracking reports and providing additional info over the long term, as well as merging duplicate reports (really, how many of the 2 million+ reports are duplicates?), and the ability to search existing reports would be fantastic. Users caught poisoning the database with troll reports could have out-of-game interaction with the db revoked by JIRA's built-in permissions management tools.
You know, if we lived in dream land.
Joined January 2009